2023-06-23 02:52:23
Dollars but no revolution: money remains at the heart of discussions between world leaders Friday, June 23 on the second and last day of the summit hosted by France, which allowed the announcement of some financing agreements without yet a broad consensus for reforming global finance in the service of the climate.
Emmanuel Macron welcomes again on Friday around forty heads of state and government, including the Brazilian Lula and the Saudi Mohammed ben Salmane, in a meeting supposed to concretize ideas born at the last COP, in Egypt, before the next, in the Emirates Arab States at the end of the year.
” Good day “
The French president has called for a « mobilisation » to set up international taxes on financial transactions, air tickets and maritime transport in order to finance the fight for the climate and against poverty. “The maritime transport sector is not taxed at all, it is one of the only ones”he noted in an interview with several media, before a North-South family photo.
In a Palais Brongniart, former headquarters of the Paris Stock Exchange, judged by several participants to be ill-suited by its location and its cramped conditions, a few announcements have been made since Thursday. Rich countries will pay Senegal to help it get rid of heavy fuel oil in its energy. Zambia will see its debt reduced. The International Monetary Fund will increase to 100 billion dollars its financing for poor countries.
Another success, according to Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, who has been pushing for months to transform the financial system: the World Bank plans to include, in its agreements with the most vulnerable countries, a new clause suspending the payment of disaster debt.
“It’s a good day, because almost everyone has accepted the validity of the natural disaster clauses”said the leader in an interview Thursday evening before a big concert for the climate in front of the Eiffel Tower.
“Bandages”
But the president of COP28, the very scrutinized boss of the oil company of the United Arab Emirates, Sultan al-Jaber, himself warned that the problem was far from being solved. Referring to the announcements of the day before, he estimated on Friday that they were only “Bandages, painkillers in the face of a problem that requires a major operation”.
The ambitions of the summit “rely too heavily on private investment and assign an outsized role to multilateral development banks”regrets Harjeet Singh, of the huge network of international NGOs Climate Action Network (CAN). “It ignores the pivotal role that public finances must play”.
With the ambition of having laid new foundations for the next international meetings, in particular that of the G20 in September in New Delhi or the COP28 in Dubai, the meetings on Friday are also held under the pressure of a demonstration in Paris calling for no more financing of fossil fuels.
Thursday evening, the big concert for the climate brought together in front of the Eiffel Tower artists like Lenny Kravitz or Bille Eilish, as well as Brazilian President Lula. “Those who really polluted the planet for the last 200 years are those who made the industrial revolution” launched the latter, applauded like a rockstar. “That’s why they have to pay the historic debt they have to the planet”.
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